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‘What makes you say that?’
‘Gut instinct, Madeleine. And I’ve been on the force long enough to trust my instincts—plus the fact that no bona fide bird-watcher would waste time or film on common seagulls when there are colonies of bald eagles and blue herons not half a mile away.’ He sighed and touched her elbow. ‘I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay away from the beach until I’ve had a chance to check him out?’
‘You suppose right,’ Madeleine said, at last recovering something of her poise, ‘but, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I’ll call you at the station when I get home.’
‘Make sure you do. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And don’t forget we have a date tomorrow night.’
Madeleine sighed, mildly irritated that, like too many other people around town, Andy insisted on acting as if she needed a keeper—as if, because she’d been fooled once by a man, her perceptions were permanently impaired. Would she never be allowed to forget one bad judgement call?
‘Quite the knight in navy armor,’ a voice at her shoulder remarked drily, as Andy strode back the way he’d come. ‘Does he have a white horse waiting to transport him back to duty?’
Madeleine realized that, far from concentrating on his bird photography, Nick Hamilton had witnessed the entire exchange between her and Andy, although she couldn’t be sure he’d been able to hear what had been said over the rush of the surf. ‘About two hundred horses, actually, contained under the hood of a car painted dark blue to match his uniform,’ she replied, loyalty to Andy compelling her to hand back to the stranger a taste of his own sardonic medicine. ‘He’s a very capable police officer, and you were unkind to tease him like that.’
‘I suppose I was.’ But the admission didn’t wring forth any indication of remorse. Indeed, the little smile tilting the corners of Nick Hamilton’s mouth suggested that he was quite pleased with himself. He bent down to fondle Peg Leg’s soft ears, then straightened up and subjected Madeleine to another thorough examination. ‘You live around here?’ he asked, squinting against the sun.
‘About a quarter of a mile down the beach.’ She pointed. ‘You can just see the chimneys sticking up above the dunes.’
‘By yourself?’
She hesitated, torn between truth and evasion. ‘Not quite.’
He saw through that little subterfuge in a flash. ‘Just you and your dog, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, and tried deflecting his curiosity by firing a question of her own. ‘What about you? I think we’ve already established that you’re not local, so where are you from?’
His glance slid away, over the sea to the horizon, where a cluster of small islands floated in the morning mist. ‘Down south,’ he said vaguely, and from that she assumed that he meant that he was American, not Canadian.
‘How did you find this spot? It’s not on any of the maps.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like your blue-uniformed friend,’ he chided her softly. ‘Will it help ease your mind to know that I don’t have a criminal record? That I’m gainfully employed and pay the balance on my credit cards every month?’
She flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that we don’t see too many tourists out here as a rule, and I wondered what attracted you to the area.’ She shrugged and looked around—at the weeds growing up between the paving-stones, the unpruned shrubs, the rose garden half buried in sand where the beach had crept up to reclaim its own. ‘The resort’s hardly a visitor’s mecca any more.’
‘Someone I know mentioned it in passing as a place worth seeing and, now that I’m here, I’m so fascinated by what I’ve stumbled across that I’ve got no desire to move on. A man’s heart and soul went into the construction of this place.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the lodge. ‘But dreams are all that are holding it together today. It deserves a more dignified fate than the slow and painful death it’s presently undergoing.’
Madeleine heartily agreed. ‘It was a magnificent private resort at one time, a sort of scaled-down Hearst Castle,’ she told him. “The man who built it used to fill it with guests from all over the world.’
‘And now it’s abandoned.’ He shrugged, all cagey insouciance. ‘Does anyone else live out here—besides you?’
Just for a second, Madeleine wondered if she was being naïve to believe he was harmless, and debated telling him that a skeleton staff still worked at the resort. But, as he’d so accurately pointed out, the building was practically sagging at the seams. The lie would have been pointless as well as a violation of her principles.
Furthermore, Peg Leg—the dog who’d perfected the art of conveying utter contempt for people she disliked by removing herself as far as possible from their presence—had settled down at this man’s feet, wearing that grinning canine expression of hers that signified total trust and relaxation.
In view of such overwhelming evidence in his favor, and the fact that Nick Hamilton was smiling at her again and turning all her moral fiber to mush, Madeleine shelved her uneasiness. ‘No. Just me and my dog.’
‘Don’t you find it lonely?’
‘Not at all. The peace and quiet are what make it so special.’
‘Good. I could use a little peace and quiet for a change.’
Madeleine took that as her cue to escape the scene gracefully, before she made a complete fool of herself. ‘Well, you’ll find plenty of that. Apart from beach-combing and bird-watching, there’s not much else to keep you entertained out here.’
He looked her over again. And again that vibrant jolt leapt the distance separating them. ‘Oh, I don’t know that I agree with that,’ he said gently. ‘I can think of a couple of other very pleasant ways to pass the time.’
His approach was more polished, but not since Martin had any man so overtly plied her with sexual innuendo. Only by drumming up a reminder of the disaster that had ensued from succumbing to male flattery that first time was Madeleine able to resist it now. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she replied coolly, and turned away, snapping her fingers for Peg Leg to follow.
To her dismay, Nick Hamilton’s hand closed over her shoulder, detaining her, and another stab, of alarm this time, underscored her discomfiture. Beyond the fact that he was incredibly good-looking—the worst kind of recommendation in a man!—she knew nothing about this person holding her with such subtle strength. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said, unable to suppress the shiver that skated over her.
He let go of her at once. ‘I’ve made you uncomfortable,’ he mourned, his voice charmingly, ingenuously, contrite. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all.’
She really did feel like a fool then, especially since Peg Leg seemed not the least disturbed by the fact that he’d dared touch her mistress. Madeleine managed a faint smile. ‘That’s all right’
‘No, it’s not,’ he said, beguiling her all over again with his sexy, sandpapery voice. ‘I’ve frightened you, when all I meant to do was let you know what a very delightful woman I think you are.’
She blushed like a thirteen-year-old with a bad case of hero-worship, and went a little weak at the knees. ‘Thank you. I…um, I have to get back now, but if there’s anything you need during your stay—use of the phone, perhaps, or fresh water—you know where I live.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze roaming warmly over her face. ‘I know where you live.’
Watching her leave, Nick pursed his lips in a silent whistle and shook his head in mystified disgust. When the gregarious garage attendant had let slip who lived next door an instant picture had sprung to mind of the sort of woman Nick expected to find. Long, slender legs and sweetly flaring hips had no more place in that picture than eyes the soft gray-green of wild sage, or the dense fluting of lashes half a shade darker than the hair tumbling wildly around a face that belonged in a Renoir painting. Nick had itched to run his fingers through that hair. Any man would.
And the blush! Women today didn’t blush when a man tossed a compliment their way, for Pete’s sake; they smacked him in the mouth. And where was the sober tweed skirt and twin-set, the graduated pearls and prim, horn-rimmed glasses he’d justifiably envisioned? By what right did the local Heritage Society come by a president who was so stunningly desirable?
This was going to throw a monkey wrench in the works and no mistake! She belonged in another era. Hell, another century! How was he supposed to contend with an opponent soft-hearted enough to own a three-legged dog and who, when he had the temerity to touch her, prefaced her request for him not to do so with a softly uttered ‘please’? She didn’t play fair.
On the other hand, neither did he—which was the chief reason he’d earned the reputation among his colleagues for ferreting out world news before it happened.
Frowning, he swung back along the path to where he’d parked the RV next to the lodge, a plan of attack already taking shape in his mind. Wooing the lady next door could conceivably backfire. But, as the old saying went, a man could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and, as long as he never forgot that the sweet-talk was merely the means to an end—in this case winning the right to do as he saw fit with the Spindrift property-he could circumvent any complications that might arise.
Looked at from that perspective, the fact that his only neighbor should turn out to be young and gorgeous was a distinct advantage, and simply made his task a lot more agreeable than it would have been had she turned out to be old and ugly.
Phase One of Operation Tyler began to take rather tantalizing shape in his mind. Always provided, of course, that good old home-town Andy Latham hadn’t already staked a firm claim on her affections. Because there was a limit to how down and dirty even Nick Hamilton was prepared to act. He drew the line at poaching on another man’s territory.
Madeleine hadn’t expected to see him again but, just after ten on Saturday morning, Nick showed up on her back doorstep. ‘Hope I’m not calling at a bad time,’ he said, ‘but I cut myself trying to open a can of coffee.’ He held up a thumb wrapped in a bloodstained handkerchief. ‘I think I need a Band-Aid.’
‘I think you do, too.’ She opened the door wider and ushered him into the kitchen. ‘Have a seat and I’ll see what I can find. Are you sure you don’t need stitches?’
‘No.’ He slouched in a chair at the table and with his good hand petted Peg Leg, who greeted him like a long-lost friend. ‘It just needs something to bind it closed for a day or two.’
Madeleine found the first aid kit and sorted through it for the package of waterproof dressings and the iodine she always kept handy. “This should do the trick. Let me have a look.’
She reached for his thumb but he drew it back, nursing it gingerly, and regarded the bottle of iodine with fearful suspicion. ‘That’s OK. I can take care of it myself. If I could just rinse it off…?’
Madeleine contained a smile. Strange dogs and un-friendly police officers might not faze him, but threaten him with minor surgery and he was ready to keel over. The god had clay feet, after all. Thank the lord! ‘There’s a powder-room just down the hall. You’ll find clean towels in the cabinet under the sink.’
‘Thanks.’
While he was gone she started a fresh pot of coffee and popped an apricot strudel in the oven. By the time he reappeared, his thumb securely taped, she had set out two mugs and a couple of paper napkins. ‘I thought you might need something to revive you.’
He smiled wanly. ‘Are all men cowards at the sight of blood, or is it just me?’
‘You’re braver than most. You dressed the injury yourself.’ She held the coffee-pot poised over his mug. ‘Cream and sugar?’
‘Just sugar. Three lumps.’ He laughed, a light, rusty snort of amusement. ‘I need a lot of sweetening.’
From what she’d witnessed he seemed plenty sweet enough, but she realized it was an opinion based on very meager evidence. For all she knew, he could possess a foul temper and a wicked tongue, and be a wife-beater to boot—a reflection which raised the rather interesting question of his marital status. Offering him first aid, however, scarcely entitled her to pry into his personal life.
He suffered from no such reticence concerning hers. ‘How was your date?’
‘Date?’ She paused in the act of slicing the strudel.
‘With the knight in navy.’ He grinned unashamedly. ‘I eavesdropped the other day. Are the two of you, as they say in trendy circles, an item?’
‘I…er, no.’
He didn’t miss her hesitation. ‘But he’d like you to be?’
‘When are you going to marry me, Madeleine?’ Andy had asked lightly just before he’d dropped her off after dinner the night before. It wasn’t the first time he’d proposed, nor the first time she’d turned him down with the joking suggestion that he was married already, to his work.
‘Andy’s a good friend,’ she told Nick. ‘We’ve know each other since we were children.’
‘I take it from that that you were born here? Have you always lived in this house?’
She looked around the big country kitchen, scene of so many happy times. In winter, when she’d come home from school, there’d always been a fire glowing in the tiled woodstove in the corner.
Among her earliest memories was one December when she’d come down with bronchitis. Her mother had wrapped her in a quilt in the big rocking-chair that still sat next to the hearth, and she’d fallen asleep to the smell of hot mincemeat, the sound of carols on the radio, and the sight of flames flickering through the heavy glass window on the stove door. The way she remembered it, it had been Christmas when she woke up, and she had been all better again.
‘Except for a few years, right after I graduated from university, I’ve never lived anywhere else.’
Nick frowned. ‘Don’t you find it a bit removed from neighbors? That place next door doesn’t look as if it’s been lived in in years.’
‘It hasn’t, but Edgewater is only five miles down the causeway. I can be in town in no time at all. I’m not really as isolated as you might think.’
‘As long as you’re mobile I don’t suppose you are, but what if you had an accident and couldn’t get to the phone?’
‘I’d be missed around town and someone would come looking for me.’
‘Like the knight in navy?’ he inquired irreverently.
She shot him a reproving glance. ‘Among others, yes. People here tend to look out for each other. It’s one of the more endearing qualities of small-town life.’
He smiled. ‘From the way you say that, I get the feeling that you’ve found it has its drawbacks, too, and I’d love to hear about them—but I’ve taken up enough of your morning.’
He pushed away from the table and stretched. Peg Leg immediately hopped out of her basket by the stove and bounced over to him, tail wagging furiously. Hunkering down before her, he pulled gently on her ears and stroked her muzzle.
‘She’s trying to persuade you that she needs a walk,’ Madeleine said.
‘I wouldn’t take much persuading.’ Eyes shaded by disgracefully long lashes, he leaned forward and practically rubbed noses with Peg. I’ve always liked dogs. What happened to her leg?’
‘She was shot, either by a farmer or a hunter, when she was a puppy, which probably accounts for her fear of loud noises. I found her at the side of the road about four years ago. Her leg was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated.’
‘Are you nuts, or what?’ Martin had scoffed when he’d heard what she’d done. ‘It’ll cost a fortune to get that mutt fixed up, and if you think I’m about to foot the bill—ha-ha, no pun intended!—you’re mistaken.’
But Nick looked up at Madeleine, his eyes quite breathtakingly beautiful in his face. ‘A charming, lovely woman with a heart,’ he murmured. ‘Talk about a dynamite combination!’
‘Thank you.’
‘And you’re certainly well-protected. A person would have to be a fool to mess with you with her around.’
‘You don’t seem too intimidated by her,’ Madeleine said, then blushed at the implied insult in her words.
Nick grinned. ‘Well, of course not, because I don’t intend you any harm and she’s smart enough to know it.’
He was a nice man, an injured man. Furthermore he was right: Peg would tear him apart if he threatened her in any way. ‘Would you like to stay for lunch, Mr Hamilton?’
He stood up and brushed one palm against the other, taking care not to jar his thumb. ‘No, ma’am, thank you very much. I’ve already outstayed my welcome. But I would like to take a rain-check, and I’d very much like to hear more about this lovely old house of yours.’
‘I’d like to show it to you,’ she said, her last faint trace of reservation slipping into oblivion. ‘Come tomorrow instead, if you’re not busy. About one o’clock?’
‘I’m not busy,’ he said, and was almost through the door when he turned back.
Madeleine looked at him inquiringly. ‘Is there something else?’
‘Just one thing,’ he said, his eyes alight with amusement. ‘I don’t want to appear nosy or anything, but do you mind telling me your name?’
‘Madeleine,’ she said, laughing, and thought how silly she’d been ever to have felt that he might not be as trustworthy as he first appeared.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e88513da-b567-58df-9ed9-fce31af01fcd)
HOUSED in a dignified turn-of-the-century stone building that was the twin of the Town Hall situated on the opposite side of the Market Square, the Edgewater Memorial Library had somehow managed to survive the passage of time unscathed. Its high-ceilinged rooms were cooled by old-fashioned fans in the summer and heated by a set of clanking old radiators in the winter.
Wire baskets, lined with moss and stuffed with seasonal flowers, hung at precise two-foot distances from each other along the eaves of the front portico. Dilys Steach, the head librarian, measured to make sure they didn’t deviate by so much as an inch either way. ‘I expect certain standards,’ she was fond of pronouncing.
‘Certain standards’ included discouraging gossip. Other people might relish passing along the latest dirt, but Dilys never did. It was the senior librarian’s unbending adherence to this principle that had saved Madeleine after Martin’s chicanery had been exposed before the whole town.
‘This is not a coffee-house, erected for your backbiting pleasure,’ she had declared sourly to those people who, in the aftermath of the scandal, had whispered together behind their hands and flung meaningful glances Madeleine’s way whenever she happened to come across them in the book aisles or the reading-room. As a result, the library had become her retreat, its quiet rooms, with that slightly musty odour of vellum and old leather peculiar to Victorian libraries, a sanctuary of peace and order.
Monday was her day off but on Tuesday following her lunch with Nick, Madeleine showed up for work with a smile on her face that refused to go away. It was still firmly in place when Sadie Brookes, her friend and secretary to the mayor, popped in for her daily visit during her morning coffee-break, even though doing so was guaranteed to elicit Dilys’s frosty disapproval.
‘Thought you’d want to hear the latest,’ Sadie whispered, leaning over Madeleine’s desk. ‘Council has been spared having to expropriate the Tyler Resort. The tax arrears were paid in full yesterday.’
‘How nice.’ Finding it difficult to bring her mind fully to bear on the information, Madeleine continued to smile dreamily. ‘We all know what an unpopular move land seizures are.’
Sadie groped for the glasses that spent most of their time perched on top of her head and propped them on her nose, so that she could take a closer look at Madeleine. ‘You’re not your usual alert self today, my dear. I’ve just told you that your precious lodge won’t be put on the auctioneer’s block and snapped up by some money-grubbing tycoon with no soul. I expected that, as president of our revered Heritage Society, you’d be jumping up and down with glee. What’s the matter? Have you fallen in love or something?’
The absurd question sent Madeleine’s thoughts winging back to Sunday and for one preposterous moment she almost answered ‘yes’.
Nick had shown up on her doorstep precisely on time, with a bottle of wine in his uninjured hand. Memory, she’d quickly discovered, had not played her false. Even allowing for the fact that this time she was half prepared for the impact of him, he still struck her as the most formidably attractive man she’d laid eyes on in all her thirty-two years.
